According to a report just released by the Census Bureau, the population of San Francisco declined 4.2% (or 32,000 people) from April 2000 to July 2004. According to CNN, “Hurt by skyrocketing housing prices, people are leaving San Francisco, Boston and other large cities in droves.” “Droves” might be... Read More »

All of a sudden our so called housing “shortage” is starting to make sense… Joshua Brody and his wife, Juliana Grenzeback, have been married for seven years, but they have never lived together. Grenzeback lives in a neat, pleasant house in San Francisco. Brody lives across the street in... Read More »

According to the California Association of Realtors, the Media sales price of a single-family detached home in the San Francisco Bay Area dropped .2% (from $723,070 to $721,730) in May of this year. Granted, not a huge decline, but directionally interesting. Also of note, sales activity has declined 8.3%... Read More »

Sounds all too familiar: “Lots of people are putting impressive amounts of money into their houses,” said Mark Scott of Mark IV Builders in Bethesda at a recent remodeling seminar…“They don’t have any money in the bank,” he said, but they’re not worried because they’re counting on future appreciation.... Read More »

From SF Gate: “Who would have guessed the best-looking new housing complex in SF is across from the Cow Palace?” Answer: Not us. And we wouldn’t have been wrong. Kudos to the Mercy Housing California, Carter Terrace is a great addition to the neighborhood. And we applaud all the... Read More »

10% of the listings featured in HILL & CO’s full page Sunday Real Estate ad screamed “PRICE REDUCED!” Perhaps under pricing listings to generate bidding wars is so last year, and the new new pricing thing is to over price in order to make buyers feel like they’re getting... Read More »

Should the housing market “pop”, it will return. It’s just a matter of time. But how long will it take? Let’s take a look at three historical housing market declines for some insight. First up, Houston. The Houston housing market declined 22.7% from 1983 to 1988; it recovered nine... Read More »

Last Monday the Supreme Court squashed a long running challenge by the owners of the Hotel San Remo in North Beach concerning a $567,000 fee they were required to pay to the city in order to convert their property from rental units to hotel rooms. Having already lost legal... Read More »

You might have already seen, but a couple of sales we’re watching: IMGhome – Going Out of Business Sale · Lombard and Harrison Street locations in the city · imghome.com Ikea – Summer Sale (through July 4) · Emeryville and East Palo Alto · ikea.com Read More »

If you visited ScrapHouse, you might also have stumbled upon the TRASHed art exhibit (as did we). The TRASHed campaign is a year long trash education program developed by Fashion Peace that redefines the way people and businesses view recycling and trash collection. TRASHed develops programs that fit seamlessly... Read More »

A city plan to redevelop Market Street between Fifth and 11th is in front of the Planning Commission for approval this evening (6pm). Apparently it’s been in the works for the past 11 years and yet we just heard about it. Nice. The plan would attempt to create a... Read More »

As you already know from diligently reading SocketSite, adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) are all the rage in our fair city and account for the vast majority new mortgages. What you might not know, and few brokers or agents like to emphasize, is that most ARMs expose barrowers to significantly more... Read More »

Making money through arbitrage (e.g. flipping) is dependent on an inefficient market. Condo Flip™ is attempting to create a marketplace for builders, buyers, and sellers, in order to make transactions more efficient for the flippers. Wait a second… Read More »

The title naturally caught our eye (Why You Can’t Afford a House in San Francisco), and we think the author’s analysis gets off to a strong start. But then he sputters. And falls flat. The entire premise of this article is that housing prices should be directly correlated with... Read More »

Yes, once again it’s the academics squaring off against the Realtors®. Not too surprisingly, they offer two wildly different views. Play along and see if you can match the forecast to the group: 1. edian home prices across the state will rise 15 percent year-over-year in 2005, down from... Read More »